Thankful Sunday--July 13, 2014

I am thankful for fresh blueberries.

Yesterday, Theo and I went blueberry picking in Uncle Billy's patch. Among Theo, me, and the dog, I'm surprised that we actually made it home with some. Blueberries right off the bush are so good. :)

A Trip to the Beach

Ward and I recently returned from a trip to the beach with his family and a good time was had by all--including me. You see, I'm not a beach person--meaning when I think about going to the beach, I don't think about the mesmerizing waves, interesting sea shells, and cool ocean breezes. I think about the burning sun and the annoying sand.

You might say the beach is not in my blood. I didn't grow up going to the beach, in fact I didn't see any ocean of any kind until after I graduated college. My family was more of the mountain type-- both for living and vacationing. When I finally gazed upon the vast waters of the Atlantic, I was fascinated, but not drawn to it. I think the main reason for that was the sun--it's my enemy. You see, I'm very fair--so fair that if it were up to me, we wouldn't need the word tan in the English vocabulary (at least as a verb). My skin has two colors--translucent white and red. It never takes a visit at the in-between color of tan. So while I was looking forward to spending time with Ward's family, I was not looking forward necessarily to doing that at the beach.

But I needn't have worried. Ward's family arranged the perfect trip for a non-beach-lover like me. We had a big house right on the beach where I could watch the mesmerizing waves from a balcony that was shaded. Our location also meant that I could take a quick trip down to the water without a big production of carrying everything I think I might need. But best of all, was the general area. We visited Nags Head, NC, which besides having very nice beaches, also has a lot of interesting history. So during the sunny times in the middle of the day, we explored the surrounding area instead of spending it on the hot sand. As I said, a good time was had by all.

Do I think I'll be vacationing at the beach on a regular basis now since I've had this positive experience? Perhaps. But for now, I'm just relishing the fact that I spent several days at the beach and I didn't get a sunburn!! Miracles do happen.

Here are a few pictures from out trip.

We woke each morning to a beautiful sunrise.

We visited Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers Museum.

 

We watched fireworks that had been postponed because of Hurricane Arthur.

We saw charter fishing boats come in and display their catch for the day. One of the kids' games during this was to touch the eyeball of a fish.

We took a family kayak trip through the Alligator River swamps.

My skilled nephew and brother-in-law used only paddle boards on our swamp trek.

We climbed the spiral stairs to the top of the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

We visited The Elizabethan Gardens. These were on Roanoke Island, the location of the Lost Colony.

We spent one hot afternoon visiting a nicely air conditioned aquarium.

And we finished each day with a beautiful sunset.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions-July 4, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. Occasionally, if our eating is going okay, I'll talk about some other food topic.

This Week's Food Waste

NONE

We've been doing pretty well preventing food waste recently. Today to continue with this vigilance, we will have to plan our meal around the refrigerator vegetable drawer. The only thing that we know for sure that we're having for today's 4th of July cookout are hamburgers. After a look in the fridge, those will need to be supplemented with grilled zucchini, mushrooms, and onions along with a green salad. Also, Theo wants to saute some radishes. I've never had anything but raw radishes, so I'm interested in how those will turn out. Anyway, I think the fridge will get pretty clean with the above menu and hopefully next week I can also report no food waste.

True Food Confessions

When we haven't been having takeout Chinese or Subway sandwiches, here are a few things we've been eating. We have been enjoying greens from the garden for both salads and cooking. Also, we resurrected the ever-favorite foil meal and experimented with Portobella mushrooms that we found on sale. Add in a couple of casseroles, and all in all, it's been pretty good eating around here.

 As some of you may have noticed, I've stopped posting every week about our eating. There have been a couple of reasons for this, the biggest one being that I got distracted by other things and got out of the habit of taking food pictures. However overall, I'd say that we've been doing pretty well. With just two of us here most of the time, a little cooking goes a long way. Thank goodness we like leftovers. However, we are slipping more and more into takeout for dinner, so it's time to get back on track. Next week that is. Now it's time to head to the beach. :)

Watch this turtle

As we all know, there are thousands probably millions of videos posted out there and after a while they all start to blur. However, I saw one yesterday, that was a little different. It showed a turtle and a dog in a very unlikely exchange. In case you haven't seen it yet, take a look. I think you'll enjoy it.

Dog and Turtle 

(I can't seem to get the video embedded, so I'm including the link instead.)

 

A Second Look--July 2, 2014

The weather this week has been hot with little rain. The afternoon/evening thunderstorms seem to be skirting their way around us without leaving any precipitation. Most of the plants are doing okay, but the stress in starting to show in some. There are some new flowers blooming, but the spectacular views of spring are gone.

The bird dramas continue, but have subsided some. Here are the updates. The chickadee box that had two pairs of chickadees fighting over it has been inactive for a couple of weeks. The nest in the wren box has continued to evolve but no eggs yet. If I were a wren, I would think it would be just right to settle down in now. But I'm not a wren, so I'll have to defer to their judgement. And the bluebird box--when last we spoke, the bluebirds and sparrows were fighting over it. The sparrows won. However, I have seen the bluebirds in the front yard, but I haven't located a new nest. I removed the sparrow's nest that they were building on top of the bluebird nest and now it looks like a house wren is building a nest on top of that. For now, that box belongs to the wrens.

And speaking of wrens, I read that the male will build two nests at the same time hoping better to attract a female. So I don't know if the two wren nests are for the same pair or two different pairs. I also read that wrens have a problem with mites and will place spider sacs in the nest so the hatching spiders will help control them. I had seen spider sacs in the nest, but assumed that they just happen to be on the twig the wren was using for construction.

Okay, do you have all of the nest box wars straight? There will be a quiz next week. :)

Here are a few things I saw this week during a Second Look.

We had two new colors of day lilies blooming this week. The first was this red one.

The other new color was this dark pink one.

The first trumpet lily also bloomed. Unfortunately, most of the trumpet lilies were eaten by the deer.

Here's the first coneflower this year. However, insects are eating many of the blooms that followed.

Balloon flower. If you look carefully, you will see a bee at the base of it.

Wren's nest. See the white balls. Those are spider sacs.